


The Watch Endures

by Kriseis



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 06:55:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/923299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kriseis/pseuds/Kriseis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A world away from the lives and deaths of kings, the black brothers on the Wall keep their vigil and watch as a greater war begins to take shape in the one direction that nobody's looking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Watch Endures

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for an exchange way back in March and April and never got around to posting it.

“The king is dead.”

The Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch sighs quietly, sinking into the seat behind his desk and holding his hand out for the message that the maester has brought him. Unrolling the scroll, Qorgyle takes in the words, scrawled across the paper in the neat hand of the Grand Maester. It confirms what Aemon has already told him. The old man’s sight is not what it once was, but his eyes are not so far gone that they cannot read what is perhaps the most important message sent to Castle Black in living memory.

Qorgyle skims the rest of the letter quickly before shaking himself and reading it thoroughly.

According to the Grand Maester, Lannister forces had attacked the city. Aerys, believing them to be friendly, opened the gates. As Tywin Lannister's troops sacked the city, his son Jaime, a sworn brother of the Kingsguard, had killed the Hand of the King, and then Aerys himself. Rhaegar's two young children and their mother have been murdered. Queen Rhaella and her youngest son, Viserys, are being held on Dragonstone.       

He looks up to see the old maester making his slow way out of the room.

“Aemon,” he calls sharply.

Aemon turns around. “Yes, my lord?”

“What are you going to do?”

He must have been expecting this question, for his response is immediate and concise. “My lord, I am an old man. I have sworn off my house twice over, first when I donned my chain at the Citadel, then again when I took the black. Even had that not been so, the fact would remain that I have never had any skill with a sword, and my eyes are going quickly. What _could_ I do?”

The question ought to be rhetorical, but Aemon’s lined face is so sad, and his voice so desperate, that Qorgyle can’t help but wonder.

 

* * *

 

The next year, Viserys Targaryen and his infant sister Daenerys are smuggled away from Dragonstone by Ser Willem Darry. Qorgyle watches his friend grow steadily more despondent as news continues to reach them - always several months after the fact, of course, for so one sees the need to alert the Night’s Watch. It does not occur to anyone that one Targaryen remains in Westeros, that while he may have sworn off his name, his eyes are as violet as any of the others’, and his heart holds just as much fire. Aemon makes no comment when they learn how Oberyn Martell tried to raise Dorne against the new king and declare for Viserys Targaryen, but Qorgyle first met the old maester when he joined the Watch at twenty, and has now known him longer than he hasn’t. So he sees the spark of righteous triumph in Aemon’s eyes.

(He also sees that spark quenched when the bearer of the news, a wandering recruiter, tells them how the attempted rebellion failed before it had a chance to succeed, and how Prince Doran Martell had to exile his brother to appease King Robert.)

 

* * *

 

When Benjen Stark arrives at the Wall for the first time, hardly anyone notices. This surprises him greatly - he’d expected a much grander receival. It’s not that Ben is an arrogant boy; as the youngest of four (two, he must remember, it’s two now), he is anything but. Still, Starks have always commanded a great deal of respect within the Night’s Watch, as they are the descendants of the first Brandon Stark, who built the Wall in the first place, as well as the house which has, time and time again, aided the Watch in its time of need and helped to throw back attacks from the wildlings. So when he follows the old recruiter through the gates of Castle Black, he ducks his head slightly and hopes that no one recognizes him.

He needn’t have worried.

The men of the Watch go about their business in a tense silence, eyes fixed determinedly ahead of them. Ben looks at his guide for some explanation - surely the courtyard of Castle Black is not always like this - but the grey old man only looks confused, if grimly so. He leads the way to the stables, where an equally silent Brother takes their horses.

The recruiter points him in the direction of the barracks and gruffly tells him to find an empty bed before stumping off towards what Ben thinks must be the Lord Commander’s tower.

It’s not until that night, when he takes a seat among the men who will become his new brothers, that he dares to ask what has happened to make everyone so terribly grim. The question hangs in the air for a moment while several of the younger men glance nervously at each other, avoiding Ben’s eyes. Then a sturdy man with a big gray beard snorts loudly and says, “You’d think this lot had been barred from speaking, the way they’re acting.”

“They haven’t, then?” In truth, Ben had begun to wonder.

The black brother snorts again and shakes his head. “Nah, they’re just scared stiff that they’ll end up implicating themselves somehow.”

“...Implicating themselves?”

The man drains his goblet, passes it off to a terrified young steward for refilling, and leans forward. “In the desertion, lad. See, there’s no way that was a solo job, and everyone knows it.” Benjen frowns uncertainly. Surely this isn’t all over a desertion? It may be the highest crime that a member of the Night’s Watch can commit, but does it always affect the others like this? Perhaps it had been a mass desertion - but that isn’t the impression Ben gets from this man, who he will later learn is a ranger called Stonesnake.

Stonesnake sees the uncertain look on Ben’s face and sighs. “All right, boy, I’ll tell ya. Just don’t go talkin’ about it too much. Makes people edgy, see.” The steward returns with a full cup and Stonesnake takes a sip. “Years back, a group of rangers met a wildling boy in the woods. He could barely walk, and when they found him he was clutching his mother’s dead body. There wasn’t anything to do but bring him back to the Watch. He was raised on the Wall, and when the time came he took his vows and became a ranger. He was always faithful to the Watch. The Lord Commander thought of him as a son.” He drinks again, then puts the cup down and looks at Ben solemnly. “That man was called Mance Rayder, and he deserted last night. And here’s the thing- he didn’t run south of the Wall. He went north.”

 

* * *

 

Years pass. Ben quickly becomes a valued ranger, despite his youth, and is delighted to find himself respected for something other than his name. Away from Winterfell the pain of the Rebellion begins to fade. The halls of his childhood home, he fears, will always feel terribly empty, and deafeningly quiet. All of his earliest memories are filled with noise and laughter, and it always came from his boisterous oldest brother and their wild sister. Ned he loves dearly, but he was away in the Vale for much of Ben’s life, and when he was in Winterfell he was always very quiet.

The first ranger ages, and the age slows him. He insists that he is perfectly well, and, ignoring the Maester’s advice, rides out on a ranging. The group of men come across a party of wildlings, and the ranger ducks just a moment too late and dies with an axe buried in his skull. The wildlings disappear, and while the other rangers - mostly new recruits who have only just made their vows - stand in shocked silence, Ben is left to help Mormont strap the body to the horse that had carried him.

He is passed over for the position of first ranger due to his youth. The position goes instead to Jeor Mormont, whose rapidly graying hair has, coupled with an attitude that matches the sigil of his house, prompted some of the younger men to dub him ‘the Old Bear’.

 

* * *

 

Aemon is awoken in the dead of night by the Lord Commander’s steward, who babbles about a terrible fever and how Qorgyle refused his dinner earlier but the boy hadn’t worried and now he wouldn’t wake up and-

Aemon shakes the boy a little, which ends the ranting at once, and calmly tells him to lead him to the Lord Commander’s Tower.

There is nothing to be done.

The maester gives him an herb to bring down the fever and sits with him through the night. Just as the sun breaks over the horizon, the Lord Commander’s chest falls and does not rise again. Aemon reaches out to feel his neck, and finds no pulse.

He leaves the room to seek out the castellan of Castle Black.

The man looks at him cautiously, but surely he knows already. The brothers of the Night’s Watch gossip worse than the highborn ladies in King’s Landing, that half-forgotten city of his youth.

“We will need,” he says, “a vote.”

 

* * *

 

On the first day of voting, many of the votes fall to Ben Stark, who wants nothing less. _I came here to leave the weight of expectation,_ he thinks. _I don’t want to be raised high because I am a Stark._ Because that is why they’re voting for him, he knows. He is barely a man grown, only eight-and-ten, and has never felt more like a boy.

In his confusion and desperation, he turns to Mormont, who he has come to regard very highly and considers a mentor.

When he voices his reluctance, the older man gives him a long, hard stare. He is silent for some time, and just when Ben is starting to get uncomfortable, Mormont speaks. “Did your brother Ned ever think he’d be lord of Winterfell?” Disconcerted by the apparent change of topic, Ben shakes his head uncertainly. Mormont presses on. “Did he really ever even _want_ to be?” He doesn’t wait for an answer this time. “I don’t think he did. I rode to war under your brother, and I don’t think anyone’s ever wanted it less. Oh, I’m sure he dreamed of it, played at it, maybe, when he was young, but that wasn’t truly his wish. The men like to call him ‘the Quiet Wolf’, did you know? It wasn’t hard to see why. All he ever wanted was a peaceful life, maybe to keep a holdfast for his brother. No, Ned Stark never wanted to be Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, but I think he may be better suited to it than his brother Brandon ever was.

“My point, boy, is that a man who never sought power often wields it better than a man who did. But you’re also right, I think, in saying that they’re voting for you mostly due to your name.”

“But I don’t want _anything_ given to me like that because of my name!” Ben cries. “I’m just a boy!”

“Well, you certainly sound like one,” Mormont grunts. “But you aren’t. You are a man of the Night’s Watch, and while you may have came here to run from the ghosts of your family and the weight of your name, that was never going to work out as you wanted it to. You’ve just made it worse, if anything. In Winterfell, you’d have been the younger brother to a Lord with an heir and a fertile wife. The castle would have soon been filled with a new family to fill the hole left by those you lost. Here, the only Starks are long dead, and every one of them revered, and with good reason. The Starks are just about the only Great House that still cares about the Watch, and every man knows it. So most of them don’t even think twice about it; when there’s a Stark on the Wall, you make him Lord Commander, boy or not. Anyone ever tell you about Osric Stark? They elected him when he was only ten. The Starks are the ones they listen to, boy, and there’s not much you can do to stop it.”

His words ring in Ben’s ears as he returns to the Hall. When he sits down, a particularly loud brother leans toward him from farther down the table. “By tomorrow, you’ll likely have the majority, Stark!”

“I don’t want the majority,” Ben says automatically.

As the man gapes at him, another asks incredulously, “But who else is there, really?”

Ben is about to shrug and finish his dinner, but then Mormont’s words come back to him. _The Starks are the ones they listen to, boy..._ Ben looks him right in the eye and says, “I think the Old Bear should be Lord Commander.”

 

Two days later, Jeor Mormont is declared the winner of the election. He calmly stands to accept the position, but when the ceremonies take place and Lord Commander Mormont names Benjen Stark to take over as First Ranger, he glares right at him as if daring him to protest.

(He doesn’t.)

 

* * *

 

When Lord Commander Mormont receives a long, narrow bundle with a note, he barely emerges from his chambers for several days. When he at last reveals himself and resumes his duties, quietly apologizing to and thanking the brothers who had essentially taken over during his brief absence, he is not the same.

It’s slow, but the story does get out.

When the Old Bear came north to take the black, he left his son Jorah to become lord of Bear Island. The young man acquired a particularly needy Hightower wife, whose demands far exceeded his coin. It seems that he was caught selling to slavers in his desperation to pay for everything his lady wanted. When he heard that Ned Stark was coming to Bear Island to pass justice, he’d fled across the narrow sea.

Lord Commander Mormont’s sister Maege put this into a letter and sent it north, along with the ancestral Valyrian steel sword the boy had left behind.

Or, at least, the man who tells this story claims, for no one seems to have seen this blade, and many seem to think that that particular detail was made up to dramatize the tale.

 

* * *

 

The day before Benjen Stark leaves for Winterfell to visit his brother, he stands atop the wall with the Lord Commander. Once he gets back, the Old Bear says, he’ll be leading a ranging to search for Ser Waymar Royce and to continue gathering information on the movements of Mance Rayder.

“There’s worse than wildlings beyond that Wall, Ben,” says Mormont, speaking now not as a commander but as a brother. “I’m starting to wonder whether Mance is even the real enemy. There may soon come a time when we ride out and find things not seen since the Battle for the Dawn. And we’ll send out our ravens. But the Watch has become little more than a place for lord to send the criminals that they don’t want to feed. Who will answer our call?”

“My brother will, and the North with him.”

“Will he even believe us? Hells, before I came here, if I’d got a raven claiming the Others had come again I’d say the black brothers had cracked. Will Ned Stark be any different?”

“Perhaps not - but he will come all the same.”

 

* * *

 

Samwell Tarly is helping him tend to the ravens when a new one swoops through the window and lands atop a cage. Aemon waits while the boy relieves the bird of the message it carries.

"It's from King's Landing. Should I open it?"

Aemon nods, but as Sam breaks the seal, he is filled with a sense of terrible foreboding. And he knows what has happened, he _knows_ , even before he hears the gasp and the trembling voice telling him,

"The king is dead."


End file.
